Hey group,
I've got a new sociological question for the board. My previous one was about whether to prevent a tribe from killing someone for religious beliefs. This one is in the same vein.

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You are an explorer and you encounter a tribe on an isolated island. (Make them the same race as yourself to avoid any other implications).

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In this society, they have a mourning practice. When one of the male members of a family dies, the female members must cut off one of their fingers as a sign of grief. They do this voluntarily as a sign of respect to the dead. Some of the females have few or no fingers left and cannot perform basic tasks, such as feeding themselves. The tribe sees nothing wrong with the practice.

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So what do you do? Do you leave them be, try to discourage the practice, or forcefully discourage the practice, or something else?
What's your line of reasoning? (Any variations on the scenario are welcome.)

See this is a very slippery slope. I bet a large number of people consider circumcision normal...and yet how is this any different in a modern world where the reasons for it are religion or tradition now?

I would definitely discourage it...but for me to force such a change I should be willing to do the same in my own world as much as possible.

there were similar situations with the practice of footbinding in China. eventually it fell out of practice through discouragement (but small feet are still admired in woman in China)